Demand printing systems utilizing an electronic press have provided the capability to produce different versions of books and/or customized books within a single press run. Demand printing systems, in general, are capable of high speed printing of images from electronic representations thereof. The electronic representations of the images for a press run are typically provided as a plurality of data files to the electronic press for subsequent processing thereby.
Upon receipt of the data files, the electronic press produces high quality color images using, for example, a set of fusible toners in an electrophotographic process. Electronic presses have also utilized electrographic, inkjet, and other printing technologies. During an exemplary press run, a web of paper is passed adjacent a series of drums, each of which has been electrostatically charged according to an image pattern for a particular color to be applied to the web. Alternatively, multiple sheets of paper are utilized instead of the paper web in a sheet-fed process. In either case, charge is transferred to the paper and an oppositely charged toner of the proper color is brought into contact with the paper. The oppositely charged paper and toner attract so that the toner is held on the paper as other colors are applied thereto. The toners and paper are thereafter heated to fuse the toners to the paper to produce the final image. If necessary, the web is then cut into sheets (or “forms”) and the forms are further processed as needed to produce a final product.
Preparation for an electronic press run typically begins with steps taken by a publisher to establish the content for a book, the content including both fixed information and, for customization, variable information. At this stage, the book is represented by one or more template files that have been generated by a page make-up program. Each template file is typically representative of both the content and location of the fixed information, as well as the location of the variable information, for one or more pages of one or more book versions. Data representative of the variable information may then be provided in database format in another file generated by the publisher.
A user interface has been developed by the assignee of the present application to facilitate the preparation and further processing of the template files. This user interface is programmed as an extension of QuarkXPress® and provides a user with the ability to define variable areas for a page in a template file, each area being a location in which variable text or a variable image will be disposed. The template file and the database are then processed to develop a press command file (or a “book ticket file”) to control the electronic press.
The database typically contains all of the variable text that will be utilized to produce customized books. As a result, a press run involving a book with lengthy sections of variable textual information requires a database having large amounts of data. The database may then require extensive data entry and/or management, and may eventually become unwieldy for large press runs.
In the past, the complexity of the database has been minimized by permitting the publisher to create multiple versions of a book, each of which, in turn, may be customized via the above-described processing. Each version is represented by master pages, which are common to all of the books of the same version, as well as variable pages, which may vary from book to book of the version. The version of each book to be produced is typically identified in the database. The identified version, in turn, specifies one or more template pages to be processed by the user interface described hereinabove to generate the master pages of the identified version. Consequently, the size of the database decreases as more of the customization involved in the press run is provided via the master pages generated for each version of the books to be produced. However, each additional version requires the publisher to create a separate set of template files, thereby undesirably increasing the time required for page make-up.